Last week the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) apologised for "a paragraph" in its four-volume 2007 report which warned there was a "very high" risk that the Himalayan glaciers, on which at least half a billion of the world's poorest people depend for water, would disappear by 2035.

"It's less extreme than in years [immediately before] but what's really important is the trend of 10 years or so, and that shows an unbroken acceleration in melting."

Haeberli also repeated his warning that many glaciers are set to disappear in the next few decades, due to an expected continuation in the rise of global average temperatures.

The most vulnerable glaciers were those in lower mountain ranges like the Alps and the Pyrenees in Europe, in Africa, parts of the Andes in South and Central America, and the Rockies in North America, said Haeberli.

"We are on the path of the highest scenario [of global warming] in reality, but if you take a medium scenario in the Alps about 70% will be gone by the middle of the century, and mountain ranges like the Pyrenees may be completely ice-free."

Glaciers at much higher altitudes  particularly in the Himalayas and Alaska, where it was colder and global warming could increase snowfall  could grow in the short term and were likely to last "centuries", said Haeberli.

"But even for the large glaciers, for a realistic [mid-range warming] scenario, it's centuries, not millennia, and not many centuries," he added.

The WGMS records data for nearly 100 of the world's approximately 160,000 glaciers, including 30 "reference" glaciers, with data going back to at least 1980.

Scientists also use methods from geology to photos and travel journals and other data to estimate glacier sizes further back in history.

The latest preliminary figures for 2007-08 show the average reduction in thickness across all the 96 glaciers was nearly half a metre, and since 1980 they have collectively lost an average of 13m thickness.

Farmers in Nepal are battling a devastating drought despite the fact that glaciers are melting in the Himalayan nation.

Their crops are failing at record rates with more than two million people facing crippling food shortages.

Photo: AFPTV

Lirung Glacier 2008Kathmandu

Lirung Glacier in the Lantang Valley, northwest of Kathmandu, 2008.

Glaciers are seen as a leading indicator of how much the planet is heating up.

Photo: AFP/Sam Taylor

Ferpecle glacierCanton of Valais, Switzerland

Water drops from the Ferpecle glacier in the Herens Valley, Canton of Valais, Switzerland, Aug. 23, 2006.

Glaciers are shrinking at record rates and many could disappear within decades, the U.N. Environment Program said Sunday March 16, 2008.
Scientists measuring the health of almost 30 glaciers around the world found that ice loss reached record levels in 2006.

Photo: Keystone, Olivier Maire

Ferpecle glacierCanton of Valais, Switzerland

Water pours down and feeds a stream from the Ferpecle glacier in the Herens Valley, Canton of Valais, Switzerland, Aug. 23, 2006.

Glaciers are shrinking at record rates and many could disappear within decades, the U.N. Environment Program said Sunday March 16, 2008.

Scientists measuring the health of almost 30 glaciers around the world found that ice loss reached record levels in 2006.

Photo: Keystone, Olivier Maire

Sunday, 16 March 2008

Glaciers suffer record shrinkage

Some glaciers in Europe have suffered significant losses

Image: Glaciers OnlineJurg Alean

The rate at which some of the world's glaciers are melting has more than doubled, data from the United Nations Environment Programme has shown.

Average glacial shrinkage has risen from 30 centimetres per year between 1980 and 1999, to 1.5 metres in 2006.

Some of the biggest losses have occurred in the Alps and Pyrenees mountain ranges in Europe.

Experts have called for "immediate action" to reverse the trend, which is seen as a key climate change indicator.

Estimates for 2006 indicate shrinkage of 1.4 metres of 'water equivalent' compared to half a metre in 2005.

Achim Steiner, Under-Secretary General of the UN and executive director of its environment programme (UNEP), said: "Millions if not billions of people depend directly or indirectly on these natural water storage facilities for drinking water, agriculture, industry and power generation during key parts of the year.

"There are many canaries emerging in the climate change coal mine. The glaciers are perhaps among those making the most noise and it is absolutely essential that everyone sits up and takes notice.

Litmus test

He said that action was already being taken and pointed out that the elements of a green economy were emerging from the more the money invested in renewable energies.

Mr Steiner went on: "The litmus test will come in late 2009 at the climate convention meeting in Copenhagen.

"Here governments must agree on a decisive new emissions reduction and adaptation-focused regime. Otherwise, and like the glaciers, our room for manoeuvre and the opportunity to act may simply melt away."

Dr Ian Willis, of the Scott Polar Research Institute, said: "It is not too late to stop the shrinkage of these ice sheets but we need to take action immediately."

The findings were compiled by the World Glacier Monitoring Service which is supported by UNEP. Thickening and thinning is calculated in terms of 'water equivalent'.

Glaciers across nine mountain ranges were analysed.

Glaciers have been monitored for more than a century

Image: Glaciers OnlineJurg Alean

Dr. Wilfried Haeberli, director of the service, said: "The latest figures are part of what appears to be an accelerating trend with no apparent end in sight.

"This continues the trend in accelerated ice loss during the past two and a half decades and brings the total loss since 1980 to more than 10.5 metres of water equivalent."

During 1980-1999, average loss rates had been 0.3 metres per year. Since the turn of the millennium, this rate had increased to about half a metre per year.

The record annual loss during these two decades - 0.7 metres in 1998 - has now been exceeded by three out of the past six year (2003, 2004 and 2006).

On average, one metre water equivalent corresponds to 1.1 metres in ice thickness. That suggests a further shrinking in 2006 of 1.5 actual metres and since 1980 a total reduction in thickness of ice of just over 11.5 metres or almost 38 feet.

In its entirety, the research includes figures from around 100 glaciers, with data showing significant shrinkage taking place in European countries including Austria, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Spain and Switzerland.

Norway's Breidalblikkbrea glacier thinned by almost 3.1 metres in one of the largest reductions.

MMVIII

Glacier of AletschBettmeralp, Switzerland

San Rafael glacierChile

slide cursor underneath or side of photos

(left)

The glacier of Aletsch, the largest in the Alps, is seen August 2007 near the mountain resort of Bettmeralp, Switzerland.

Landslides, floods and storms have taken their toll on Switzerland's political climate, turning the Greens into the fastest growing force in the Alpine nation.

(right)

A piece of ice from the San Rafael glacier falls into the water.

Global warming, Chilean scientists say, has done the most damage to the glacier, which lies 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) south of Santiago.

Photos: AFP/Fabrice Coffrini, AFP/Martin Bernetti

Due to US, European, South American and Asian imports,China now World's No. 1source of greenhouse gas emissions

The glaciers that ripple off the peaks of Anyemaqen, a mountain range in the western China province of Qinghai, are shrinking rapidly, endangering hundreds of millions of people who depend on the waters flowing eastward through the Yellow River.

With the rest of the country punished by record heat waves, floods and droughts this summer, it's no wonder that Beijing, which has long viewed global warming as a problem that rich nations should solve, is waking up to the fact that China may be especially at risk.

Qinghai, a poor, Texas-size stretch of the northern Tibetan is a plateau where yaks outnumber humans.

Qinghai Lake is a saltwater body about 200 miles away.

Deaths from floods, lightning and landslides across China in recent weeks have reached nearly 700, state media reported this week, and officials warned that global warming is likely to cause even more violent weather.

Records for worst-in-a-century rainstorms, droughts and heat waves are being broken more often

"The frequency and intensity of extreme weather events are increasing  records for worst-in-a-century rainstorms, droughts and heat waves are being broken more often," said Dong Wenjie, director-general of the Beijing Climate Center.

"This in fact is closely associated with global warming."

At Anyemaqen, a hike into the remote area last week by a Chronicle reporter found that the 5-mile-long Halong Glacier has shrunk by several hundred yards since it was last photographed by a Greenpeace activist in 2005  and by a mile since a similar photo in 1981.

Local nomads say their livelihood is at stake.

"When I was a child, it was very cold and the grass was long, up to here," said Namgyal Tsering, a 22-year-old herder, motioning to his shin as he perched on a high ridge and watched his flock of sheep.

"Now the grass is short, and many people have moved into towns."

Area of glaciers has shrunk by 30 percent

The Qinghai-Tibetan plateau is warming up faster than anywhere else in the world, Chinese scientists said last week.

The region's average annual temperature is rising at a speed of 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit every 10 years, threatening to melt glaciers, dry up the 3,395-mile Yellow River and cause more droughts, sandstorms and desertification.

The plateau once contained 36,000 glaciers covering an area of 18,000 square miles, but in recent decades, the area of these glaciers has shrunk by 30 percent, say scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The government has forcibly moved thousands of nomads into local towns, giving them free housing and 8,000 yuan (about $1,060) per year.

A scattering of interviews with the resettled nomads showed that while some liked their new life and some didn't, all agreed that their life before had become untenable.

"Before, there was no grass, and the rats dug holes everywhere and the ground was black," recalled Chith Tsering, holding her 1-year-old daughter as she multitasked around her family's three-room house in Dawu.

Since she moved from her remote grassland ranch three years ago, "it's better, but it's sad," she said.

Around Qinghai's steep canyons and rolling grassland, there's an obvious new prosperity among the rural Tibetan people.

China's surging economic boom has reached into even the most remote hamlets.

Nearly every tent or house has a new motorcycle  or even a sport utility vehicle  parked outside, evidence that rising demand by city dwellers for meat had driven up prices for the region's yaks and sheep.

From village to village, Tibetan Buddhist temples that were torn down during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and early 1970s are now being rebuilt  often with money from newly wealthy businessmen in major cities such as Beijing and Guangzhou.

Spidery webs of prayer flags stretch up mountainsides at seemingly every bend in the road, a testament to the resurgence of ethnic Tibetans' spirituality as the Chinese government loosens its harsh restrictions on religious life.

China due to US, European, South American and Asian imports, world's No. 1 source of greenhouse gas emissions

The nationwide economic boom has propelled China into overtaking the United States as the world's No. 1 source of greenhouse gas emissions, according to new data released in May.

China's output of emissions is rising by an annual amount that far outstrips the cutbacks that wealthy nations are committed to make under the Kyoto Protocol.

"The Chinese government is gradually realizing that global warming is something that will deeply affect the Chinese people and their economic security," said Yang Ailun, climate program coordinator for Greenpeace in China.

In international climate negotiations, China's leaders have refused to consider binding limits on the country's emissions, arguing that limits should be imposed only on wealthy nations.

Instead, China has adopted a goal of reducing the amount of energy expended per unit of wealth  a weaker yardstick that many environmentalists have criticized as insufficient.

In recent months, however, officials have discussed these goals with increasing urgency, noting the recent extreme weather.

But the effects of climate change can be fickle, as Paulson found Monday.

During drought years in the late 1990s through 2005, the salt lake's area shrank by more than a fourth.

But during a Chronicle reporter's recent visit, the salt lake was brimming over its banks because of weeks of steady rains  the same weather pattern that, farther east, was causing severe flooding.

The hills surrounding the lake were verdant, and yaks have abundant pasture, locals said.

Downstream on the Yellow River, where farmers depend on the trickle to water their crops, floods and hail killed 17 people across four provinces last weekend alone.

Global warming is rapidly melting the ice-bound roof of the world, and turning it into desert, leading scientists have revealed.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences  the country's top scientific body  has announced that the glaciers of the Tibetan plateau are vanishing so fast that they will be reduced by 50 per cent every decade.

Each year enough water permanently melts from them to fill the entire Yellow River.

The plateau, says the academy, has a staggering 46,298 glaciers, covering almost 60,000 square miles.

At an average height of 13,000 feet above sea level, they make up the largest area of ice outside the polar regions, nearly a sixth of the world's total.

The glaciers have been receding over the past four decades, as the world has gradually warmed up, but the process has now accelerated alarmingly.

Average temperatures in Tibet have risen by 2 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 20 years, causing the glaciers to shrink by 7 per cent a year, which means that they will halve every 10 years.

Prof Dong Guangrong, speaking for the academy  after a study analysing data from 680 weather stations scattered across the country  said that the rising temperatures would thaw out the tundra of the plateau, turning it into desert.

He added: "The melting glaciers will ultimately trigger more droughts, expand desertification and increase sand storms."

The water running off the plateau is increasing soil erosion and so allowing the deserts to spread.

Sandstorms

Sandstorms, blowing in from the degraded land, are already plaguing the country.

So far this year, 13 of them have hit northern China, including Beijing.

Three weeks ago one storm swept across an eighth of the vast country and even reached Korea and Japan.

On the way, it dumped a mind-boggling 336,000 tons of dust on the capital, causing dangerous air pollution.

The rising temperatures are also endangering the newly built world's highest railway, which is due to go into operation this summer.

Permafrost

They threaten to melt the permafrost under the tracks of the £1.7bn Tibetan railway, constructed to link the area with China's northwestern Qinghai province.

A general view of the city centre of Lhasa is seen from the top of the Potala Palace, Tibet, July 28, 2007.

Moisture has become a luxury in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa where many locals are waking up to nosebleeds in the dry autumn, state media said on
Monday as the Himalayan region faces growing threat of global warming.

(right)

Tibetan's collect rocks in the Nyang-Chu valley surrounded by the high peaks of the Himalayas in February 2007.

The Himalayas and Tibetan plateau formed when a supercontinent broke up and the Indian sub-continent smashed at high speed into Eurasia.

Photos: REUTERS/Reinhard Krause, AFP/Peter Parks

Washington State's Glaciers are Melting, and that has scientists concerned

WASHINGTON  With more glaciers than any state in the Lower 48, Washington state has emerged as a bellwether for global warming.

The signs are not encouraging.

A national environmental group recently reported that North Cascades and Mount Rainier are among the dozen national parks most susceptible to climate change.

At Mount Rainier, which has more glacial ice than the rest of the Cascades combined and is among the best studied sites in the nation, the area covered by glaciers shrank by more than a fifth from 1913 to 1994, and the volume of the glaciers by almost one-fourth, the National Park Service says. From 1912 to 2001, the Nisqually Glacier on Mount Rainier retreated nearly a mile.

Since the first stirrings of the Industrial Revolution 150 years ago, glaciers in the northern Cascades have shrunk by 40 percent, and the pace is accelerating. The South Cascades Glacier, one of the most studied in the nation, has lost roughly half its mass since 1928.

In the Olympic Mountains, glaciers have lost about one-third of their mass.

"They are the canary in the coal mine," Ed Josberger, the head of the U.S. Geological Survey's ice and climate project in Tacoma, said of the glaciers in Washington state. "They are changing fast, and this is not good."

The state's official climatologist, Philip Mote, agreed.

"Everything is now retreating, and the smaller glaciers are disappearing," said Mote, a research scientist at the University of Washington, who's guarded in attributing the changes directly to global warming but concedes that the evidence is mounting.

Glaciers are affected by two climatic conditions: snowfall, which adds to their mass during the winter, and warm temperatures, which spur melting in the summer. The amount of snow falling in the Northwest is declining, while temperatures are rising.

During the 20th century, Mote said, temperatures in the region rose about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit. In western Washington state, Mote said, the increase was even greater, roughly 2 degrees.

Despite some heavy snowfalls in the late 1990s  in the winter of 1998-99, Mount Baker recorded a record snowfall of 1,100 inches  the overall trend is negative.

"The decline in snowfall in the Northwest has been the largest in the West, and it is clearly related to temperature," Mote said.

The glaciers in Washington state aren't the only ones retreating. From the Arctic to Peru and from Greenland and Europe to East Africa, there are reports that glaciers are shrinking.

There are exceptions. Glaciers on California's Mount Shasta, at the southern end of the Cascade range, have been growing, Mote said. Recent studies indicate that glaciers also might be growing in the Himalayas and other Asian mountain ranges.

No one is quite sure what causes these anomalies.

"The signature of human influence on climate is pretty clear on the continental scale and the regional scale," Mote said. But when it comes to smaller geographic areas, Mote said, the picture is unclear.

Other scientists are convinced that global warming has caused glaciers to retreat in the Northwest and elsewhere.

"This is what the models predicted," said Joe Reidel, the park geologist for the North Cascades National Park. "They are melting fast. There can be pauses of five or six years, but they are still shrinking rapidly."

Reidel has been studying glaciers in the North Cascades for 15 years. Scientists use everything from ice-penetrating radar to satellite imagery to on-the-ground observations to track the glaciers.

They've been methodically studying the South Cascades Glacier for 50 years and observing glacial changes on Mount Rainier since the late 1800s.

"There is no question glaciers are a dramatic indicator of climate," Reidel said.

The National Park Service has been supportive of his research, Reidel said, but it's harder to find more funding through federal grants.

"Money is getting tougher and tougher to come by," he said.

Reidel thinks the glaciers and the Earth's climate might be reaching a tipping point from which there may be no recovery.

There's more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now than at any time in the past 20 million years, Reidel said.

Carbon dioxide, thought to be a key ingredient in global warming, is emitted by burning fossil fuels such as coal or oil, among other things. Research has shown that none of the other warm periods in the past 20 million years had such a high concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, he said.

"It is clear it is human-induced," Reidel said.

Scientists are still trying to determine what changes the Northwest may experience from global warming. But Reidel said it was clear that stream flows would be reduced as the glaciers shrank, affecting the region's extensive system of hydroelectric dams and salmon and other fish.

Reidel said summer flows in one drainage in the North Cascades had dropped by 25 percent; if the glaciers disappear they'll fall by another 20 percent.

"Some reservoirs get 20, 30 and even 40 percent of their water during the summer from glaciers," he said.

Reidel said no one knew for sure whether Washington state's mountain glaciers would disappear eventually.

"Without a doubt, global warming is real," he said. "We need to get past that debate. People are paying attention to what is happening to the glaciers in Washington state. They could change even more rapidly if we reach a certain threshold."

Here are some quick facts on glaciers in Washington state:

 The 25 major glaciers on Mount Rainier collectively form the largest collection of permanent ice on a single U.S. mountain outside Alaska. They cover about 34 square miles or about 1 cubic mile.

 The North Cascades National Park has 318 glaciers, or about 60 percent of the land covered by glaciers in the United States outside Alaska. The park and nearby areas have about 42 square miles of ice.

 Long ago, mile-thick glaciers flowing down from the Olympic Mountains gouged out Puget Sound, isolating the Olympic Peninsula from the mainland. The Olympics have about 18 square miles of ice.

Calving front, or break-off point into the ocean, of Helheim Glacier, located in southeast Greenland.

The first mass exodus of people fleeing the disastrous effects of climate change is not happening in low-lying Pacific islands but in the world's richest country, a US study said.

(right)

Aerial view shows a slab of rock that is poised to break away from the Eiger mountain near Grindelwald in the Bernese Oberland.

Hansruedi Burgener has welcomed up to 800 people a day  twice the average number of visitors  to his remote mountain
hostel in the Alps this summer.

They all hope to watch a rock the size of two Empire State Buildings collapse onto the canyon floor up to 200m (656 feet) below, as retreating glacier ice robs a cliff face on the eastern edge of the Eiger mountain of its main support.

Photo taken July 13, 2006.

Photos: NASA, Pascal Lauener/Reuters

Millions face glacier catastropheGlobal warming hits Himalayas

Sunday November 20, 2005Robin McKie, science editorThe Observer

Nawa Jigtar was working in the village of Ghat, in Nepal, when the sound of crashing sent him rushing out of his home. He emerged to see his herd of cattle being swept away by a wall of water.

Jigtar and his fellow villagers were able to scramble to safety. They were lucky: 'If it had come at night, none of us would have survived.'

Ghat was destroyed when a lake, high in the Himalayas, burst its banks. Swollen with glacier meltwaters, its walls of rock and ice had suddenly disintegrated. Several million cubic metres of water crashed down the mountain.

When Ghat was destroyed, in 1985, such incidents were rare  but not any more. Last week, scientists revealed that there has been a tenfold jump in such catastrophes in the past two decades, the result of global warming.

Himalayan glacier lakes are filling up with more and more melted ice and 24 of them are now poised to burst their banks in Bhutan, with a similar number at risk in Nepal.

But that is just the beginning, a report in Nature said last week.

Future disasters around the Himalayas will include 'floods, droughts, land erosion, biodiversity loss and changes in rainfall and the monsoon'.

The roof of the world is changing, as can be seen by Nepal's Khumbu glacier, where Hillary and Tenzing began their 1953 Everest expedition.

It has retreated three miles since their ascent.

Almost 95 per cent of Himalayan glaciers are also shrinking  and that kind of ice loss has profound implications, not just for Nepal and Bhutan, but for surrounding nations, including China, India and Pakistan.

Eventually, the Himalayan glaciers will shrink so much their meltwaters will dry up, say scientists.

Catastrophes like Ghat will die out.

At the same time, rivers fed by these melted glaciers  such as the Indus, Yellow River and Mekong  will turn to trickles. Drinking and irrigation water will disappear. Hundreds of millions of people will be affected.

'There is a short-term danger of too much water coming out the Himalayas and a greater long-term danger of there not being enough,' said Dr Phil Porter, of the University of Hertfordshire. 'Either way, it is easy to pinpoint the cause: global warming.'

According to Nature, temperatures in the region have increased by more than 1C recently and are set to rise by a further 1.2C by 2050, and by 3C by the end of the century. This heating has already caused 24 of Bhutan's glacial lakes to reach 'potentially dangerous' status, according to government officials. Nepal is similarly affected.

'A glacier lake catastrophe happened once in a decade 50 years ago,' said UK geologist John Reynolds, whose company advises Nepal. 'Five years ago, they were happening every three years. By 2010, a glacial lake catastrophe will happen every year.'

An example of the impact is provided by Luggye Tsho, in Bhutan, which burst its banks in 1994, sweeping 10 million cubic metres of water down the mountain. It struck Panukha, 50 miles away, killing 21 people.

Now a nearby lake, below the Thorthormi glacier, is in imminent danger of bursting. That could release 50 million cubic metres of water, a flood reaching to northern India 150 miles downstream.

'Mountains were once considered indomitable, unchanging and impregnable,' said Klaus Tipfer, of the United Nations Environment Programme. 'We are learning they are as vulnerable to environmental threats as oceans, grasslands and forest.'

Not only villages are under threat: Nepal has built an array of hydro-electric plants and is now selling electricity to India and other countries.

But these could be destroyed in coming years, warned Reynolds.

'A similar lake burst near Machu Picchu in Peru recently destroyed an entire hydro-electric plant. The same thing is waiting to happen in Nepal.'

Even worse, when Nepal's glaciers melt, there could be no water to drive the plants. 'The region faces losing its most dependable source of fresh water,' said Mike Hambrey, of the University of Wales.

A Greenpeace report last month suggested that the region is already experiencing serious loss of vegetation. In the long term, starvation is a real threat.

'The man in the street in Britain still isn't sure about the dangers posed by global warming,' said Porter. 'But people living in the Himalayas know about it now. They are having to deal with its consequences every day.'

Residents attempt to salvage what they can last week after the strongest typhoon to hit China in 50 years demolished homes in Fuding, in southeast China's Fujian province.

Global warming is contributing to an unusually harsh typhoon season in China that started around a month early and has left thousands dead or missing, government officials and experts say.

(right)

A cloud of waste gas billows out of chimney stacks at a factory in the eastern German village of Heiligengrabe, June 2, 2004.

Climate change could be slowed by burying greenhouse gases blamed for global warming deep below the ocean floor under thick, cold sediment that would trap it for thousands of years, said a team of Harvard-led scientists.

Photos: AFP/Frederic J. Brown, REUTERS/Christian Charisius

Thursday, 25 August 2005

Peru's glaciers in retreat

By Hannah Hennessy

BBC News, Huaraz

The stalactites hang like glass daggers over the glacial lake.

Ice peaks rise against the bright blue sky like crystal pyramids.

The glacial retreat at Pastoruri shows no sign of stopping

Mounds of dark rock rise up between the snow and ice, discoloured after years of being covered by the glacier.

This is Pastoruri. In the past 10 years, its ice caps have retreated by about 200m.

Soon it, like many other glaciers in Peru, will have disappeared almost completely.

At about 5,000m, or just over 16,000ft, it is one of the glaciers worst affected by climate change in Peru.

And Peru, in turn, is one of the countries worst affected by climate change in the world.

Sitting between the tropics, where the sun is particularly fierce, and home to more tropical glaciers than anywhere else, this South American country is especially vulnerable to rising temperatures.

Experts predict all the Peruvian glaciers below 5,500m will disappear by 2015. This is the majority of Peru's glaciers.

Marco Zapata works at the Institute for National Resources in the Andean town of Huaraz, in northern Peru. He has studied glaciers for more than 30 years and says in that time Peru has lost more than 20% of its glaciers.

One of the main reasons why Peru is so vulnerable to climate change has to do with water.

Water needs

The majority of its population lives in a narrow strip of land between the Andes mountains and the sea.

Local farmers depend on the glacial water to irrigate their crops

This area is mainly desert and the people who live here receive their water from the mountains. Melting glaciers also provide water for hydroelectricity, industry and farming.

Pressure on water resources is only likely to grow as more and more people move to coastal cities like the capital Lima and industry expands. But the source of that water is also under pressure.

"At the moment, we are experiencing a very strong process of glacial retreat.

There is an apparent abundance of water in these mountains.

In the rainy season there are no problems, but in the dry season the glaciers are the only ecosystem that is supporting the river.

And this problem of the process of glacial retreat is so fast, that in a very short time, it's possible the glaciers will disappear and there will be a problem of a lack of water for future generations."

Snow caps

Emilio Himenez has farmed land in the shadow of the Llanganuco lakes for almost four decades. He irrigates his land with water from the glaciers that supply the lakes and grows a variety of fruit and vegetables which he sells at market.

Emilio Himenez and his family have farmed the land for almost 40 years

"I can see the snow caps aren't like they were before," says Mr Himenez.

As he works in the fields with his wife and daughters, one of his grandchildren, four-year-old Frank Michael looks on.

"Perhaps in 20 more years, there won't be water if the snow caps go," Mr Himenez adds.

"It will be very sad because when there is water there is life and when there is no water, there is no life, not for the animals, or the humans, or for the agriculture. And, I don't know what situation our grandchildren will be in."

Peru Desalinization

Water scarce resource

Pumps take water from the Pacific Ocean

Pumps take water from the Pacific Ocean at the desalinization plant of the mining company Milpo near Chincha, February 19, 2008.

Fresh water is an increasingly scarce resource in Peru, where most of the population lives along the desert coast.

Rivers can be erratic and the glaciers in the Andes are melting because of global warming.

Tubes holding filters and high-tech membranes remove salt from ocean water at the desalinization plant of Peruvian mining company Milpo at its Cerro Lindo mine in Chincha February 19, 2008.

Fresh water is an increasingly scarce resource in Peru, where most of the population lives along the desert coast.

Rivers can be erratic and the glaciers in the Andes are melting because of global warming. Milpo, a Peruvian mining company, has installed Peru's first water desalinization plant, which takes water out of the Pacific Ocean and then pumps it up 6,000 feet into the Andes, where the purified water runs through Milpo's sprawling new Cerro Lindo mine and provides water to the mining town's 700 workers, who mine copper, zinc, and lead.

Photo: Keystone, Olivier Maire

Global warming effects Fuding, Fujian province, China

Human arrow pointingU.S. Capitol building, Washington

(left)

A man prepares to clean up the rubble of his demolished home last week in Fuding, in southeast China's Fujian province.

Global warming is contributing to an unusually harsh typhoon season in China that started around a month early and has left thousands dead or missing, government officials and experts say.

(right)

Hundreds of Greenpeace protesters against global warming form a human arrow pointing to the U.S. Capitol building Washington, D.C. August 2, 2006, to make notice of the ever increasing pollution in the troposphere and stratosphere being created by the US.

Photos: AFP/Frederic J. Brown, Greenpeace/Mannie Garcia

BBC  Tuesday, 27 April, 2004

Patagonian ice in rapid retreat

By Jonathan Amos

BBC News Online science staff

The dense, blue ice of the San Rafael Glacier

One of South America's leading natural tourist destinations, the San Rafael Glacier in Chile, is retreating at an alarming rate, say UK scientists.

Located in a World Heritage Site, the glacier draws thousands of visitors each year to marvel at the way icebergs calve into the sea from its front wall.

But Dr Neil Glasser and colleagues say rapid melting is now under way because of historically high air temperatures.

They warn that if the glacier withdraws on to the land, tourism will suffer.

This glacier was relatively stable for 3,000-5,000 years and then suddenly, in the last 100 years, it came back

Dr Neil Glasser

"This glacier is not only in a World Heritage Site, it is also in a Unesco biosphere reserve and huge national park," Dr Glasser, from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, told BBC News Online.

"If the glacier retreats further up valley, it will cease to calve icebergs into the Laguna San Rafael, and one of the reasons why this area attracts so many tourists will be largely gone."

Temperature records

The San Rafael Glacier is part of the Northern Patagonian Icefield.

It is one of the fastest-moving glaciers in the world, flowing at 17m a day.

Falling from an altitude near to 3,000m right down to sea level, it is driven on by gravity and the mass of prodigious quantities of snowfall high up in the Andes.

Now, Glasser and Aberystwyth colleague Dr Krister Jansson, together with Dr Stephan Harrison from Oxford University, have been able to show that the glacier's front wall stands 1km further back in the water compared with the early 1990s.

Calving activity off the 70m-high vertical ice cliff has been dramatically reduced, too.

"We first went there 13 years ago.

"People put paint marks on the rock wall where the glacier was then; they even built a lookout post directly over the front of the glacier in 92," Dr Glasser said.

"This year, the glacier is nowhere near this point  it's about a kilometre back from where it was.

"We've looked at the precipitation records closest to this area and they show no obvious change over the last 100 years, but they do have a rise in temperature recorded."

Mirrored recession

Scientists concede their historical data on the extent of glaciers  across much of the world, not just in South America  is patchy.

However, they argue a consistent pattern of recession is beginning to emerge with many ice bodies from the Arctic to the tropics.

Tourists visit the site to see icebergs break off

At San Rafael, the glacier's position was recorded once in the late 1800s as being more than 10km further out into the sea than it is now.

And moraine, the sediments dumped by the glacier, about 12km from the present ice front are currently being dated by the UK team  but are expected to be 3,000-5,000 years old.

"So it seems this glacier was relatively stable for 3,000-5,000 years and then suddenly, in the last 100 years, it came back.

Dr Harrison added: "In recent years, the glaciers of the Northern Patagonian Icecap have been melting rapidly as a result of global warming, and the San Rafael Glacier has mirrored this retreat.

"The Patagonian icefields are losing ice more rapidly than any other comparable ice masses on Earth and we must see this as the inevitable consequence of global climate change."

Last year, US researchers working in the Patagonian icefields reported similar concerns.

The Nasa-led study, published in the journal Science, looked at ice loss in 63 areas, comparing data from three decades.

Jansson and Glasser have been going to the laguna for over a decade

The researchers found ice was lost at a rate sufficient to push up ocean waters by 0.04mm per year during the period from 1975 through to 2000.

Uchimizu, water sprinklingTokyo, Global Warming ceremony

Miss Universe Rivera Mendoza of Puerto Rico

(left)

Japanese children clad in yukatas (summer kimono) splash water during a traditional Japanese uchimizu, or water sprinkling, event to prevent global warming in Tokyo August 2, 2006.

Japanese traditionally sprinkle water in front of shops and house entrances to cool down the roads and settle the dust and this practice is believed to cool the surface heat of cities by two to three degrees in the summer.

(right)

Newly crowned Miss Universe Zuleyka Rivera Mendoza of Puerto Rico, clad in a traditional Japanese yukata, splashes water during a traditional Japanese uchimizu or water sprinkling event to prevent global warming in Tokyo August 2, 2006.

Photos: REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao

BBC  Friday, 17 October, 2003

South American glaciers' big melt

A dramatic image looking down the Calvo Glacier in Chile

The Patagonia glaciers of Chile and Argentina are melting so fast they are making a significant contribution to sea-level rise, say scientists.

They report ice was lost at a rate sufficient to push up ocean waters by 0.04 millimetres per year during the period from 1975 through to 2000.

This is equal, the researchers say, to 9% of the total annual global sea-level rise from all mountain glaciers.

The American research team reports its findings in the journal Science.

Rising temperatures

The team combined data from a space shuttle mission in 2000 and survey data gathered on the ground to study the 63 largest Patagonia ice fields.

They compared ice loss rates between 1968 and 1975, and from 1975 to 2000. As well as the general increase in melting, the team also found accelerated ice-mass loss between 1995 and 2000.

This period saw melting sufficient to push up sea-levels by 0.1 millimetres per year.

In comparison, the team says, Alaska's glaciers, which cover an area five times larger, account for about 30% of the total annual global sea-level rise from mountain glaciers.

The researchers, led by Eric Rignot, from the US space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, believe climate change has led to the region experiencing a rise in air temperatures and decreased precipitation.

Lucia Glacier: Like many others its leading edge calves into a lake

Going backwards

Still, those factors alone are not sufficient to explain the rapid thinning.

The rest of the story appears to lie primarily in the unique dynamic response of the region's glaciers to climate change, the researchers believe.

A man walks in front of the Sasol fuel refinement plant near Johannesburg, South Africa, Sept. 1, 2002.

About one quarter of World Bank development programs may be at risk because of climate change, the organization warned Tuesday Aug. 29, 2006, at an environmental summit.

The warnings came at the opening of a conference of the Global Environmental Facility, a partnership with the U.N.
Development Program, the U.N. Environment Program and the World Bank and the biggest source of funding for projects to combat pollution and promote sustainable development.

(right)

A boat sails by the waters of the Riachuelo river in Buenos Aires, August 17, 2006.

The Matanza-Riachuelo river basin is home to nearly five million people, more than 10 percent of Argentina's total population.

The public advocate's office has said heavy metals such as lead, chrome and mercury pollute the water, soil and air, and may be causing chronic health problems.

The government is expected to be formally unveil next week its latest cleanup plan in response to an historic Supreme Court decision demanding the government work with local industry to detoxify the Riachuelo, citing the constitutional
right to a healthy and clean environment.

Photos: AP/Denis Farrell, REUTERS/Enrique Marcarian, August 17, 2006

Thursday, 9 October, 2003

Melting glaciers threaten Peru

Thousands of people in the Andes mountains of Peru are having their lives affected in both a practical and cultural way by climate change, which is causing the region's glaciers to melt.

The Andes glaciers are disappearing fast

This is already having a major impact of some aspects of life for the people who live in the mountains  and the government of the country is worried that the situation could get much worse.

In the last three decades, Peruvian glaciers have lost almost a quarter of their area.

"This is an indicator which gave us some concern on how the future was going to be on these tropical glaciers," Patricia
Iturregui, head of the Climate Change Unit of Peru's National Council for the Environment, told BBC World Service's One Planet programme.

"All our estimations on the basis of this data are that in the next 10 years the top tropical glaciers of Peru  and eventually other Andean countries  above 5,500 metres will disappear if climate conditions remain as the last 10 years."

Nasa fears

The most immediate threat is coming from the change to water supplies in the area.

During the dry season, river water comes exclusively from the glaciers, which melt naturally at that time of year. They then replenish themselves in the wet season.

But this balance has been upset  the glaciers are melting faster than they can replenish themselves.

Nasa says its satellites have detected a crack in the glacier near Lake Palcacocha

As they thaw, dozens of new lakes have spread all over the highland.

A recent report by US space agency Nasa suggested that a large chunk of ice in the area could break off and fall into one of these lakes, triggering a devastating flood.

Satellites had detected a crack in the glacier overlooking Lake Palcacocha.

One city under threat would be Huaraz, with a population of 100,000. The news from Nasa came as a very worrying shock to many in the city.

"We were all very worried in my family  we packed suitcases with clothes and blankets," Joana, one of the citizens of
Huaraz, told One Planet.

"We warned our relatives to be prepared."

Risk assessment

Some scientists dispute Nasa's claims. Mario Giva, of the Peruvian National Institute for Natural Resources, said that it was "necessary for some work in the field to determine whether there is sufficient evidence of any imminent danger".

Nevertheless, Nasa is currently in conversation with the Peruvian Government over these findings, which is drawing up plans to respond to the risks posed by the melting glaciers.

"We need to make an important effort to plan disaster management and prevention of risks in the future," Ms Iturregui said.

"The most important measures to be taken are to organise local communities and to organise an institutional framework able to respond to these adverse effects."

She added that an assessment of water resources available in the future was currently under way.

"We are in the process of desertification," stressed Ms Iturregui.

"The retreat of the glaciers is definitely going to mean a shortfall in the water supply in years to come."

Tourism threat

Some in Huarez itself recall when, in 1941, a chunk of ice did melt off  and destroyed around a third of the city, killing between 5,000 and 7,000 people.

The melting water is putting some of Peru's irrigation system under strain

But the melting glaciers are also causing other problems.

The deluge is proving too much for some of the canals  some of which are many years old  that supply the farms and mills in the central region.

Conversely, the fact that the glaciers are not replenishing themselves is also a potential threat to life in the
region, as in the dry season they are the sole source of fresh water.

And there are further impacts on the lives of people in the mountains.

"Now, glaciers are sliding over the bedrock," said glacier expert Cecil Portocarrero.

"This is causing problems  not only for water resources but also for tourism, for climbers."

'Healing water' banned

Meanwhile some ancient spiritual traditions are also under threat.

Every year thousands of people from across the Andes flock to the Sinakara glacial mountain to attend the Qoyllur Rit'i
religious festival.

Catholic tradition believes that the Christ child appeared in 1870 to a shepherd boy named Marianito Mayta. Ever since,
pilgrims have believed that Christ lives in the rock.

Villages in Peru have only the glaciers for fresh water

And for the Incas  and other civilisations that preceded them  mountains were gods to be honoured, as they supplied
water and controlled the weather.

Many people come down from the glacier with pieces of ice, as they believe the ice can cure them of illness.

"Perhaps at home someone is not feeling well. They will drink it and they will be cured."

Ritual ending

This year, because of concerns about melting, the Pablitos  the guardians of the Qoyllur Rit'i ceremony  have stopped
the ice being taken away.

"We decided to eliminate this part of a ritual because we are concerned about the glacier," explained one Pablito. "We have taken this decision to protect the ice."

The decision has upset many pilgrims.

"The glaciers were bigger  when I first came here this particular one reached around 200 metres down," one said.

"In a few years' time we might not have any ice. I don't know where the Andean people will be able to go for their rituals."

Nationwide tree plantingGreen Philippine Highway

500,000 treesalong the country's main highway

Project to reduce pollution<

Manila, Philippines

(left)

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo center, Vice President Noli De Castro, left, and Department of Environment and Natural Resources Sec. Angelo Reyes use shovels during the tree planting activity for the launching of the Green Philippine Highway Friday, Aug. 25, 2006 at the Rizal park in Manila.

A nationwide tree planting activity was launched to heed the call for cleaner air as the country was tagged as the second most polluted air among eight Asean countries.

(right)

Students line up along the vacant stretch of the railroad tracks in Manila prior to the nationwide simultaneous tree-planting of the 3,000-kilometer Pan Philippine Highway Friday Aug. 25, 2006 to help fight worsening pollution in the country.

The Philippine Government through its Environment and Natural Resources Department has embarked on a project to reduce pollution in the country by planting a record of over 500,000 trees along the country's main highway from north to south.

Glaciers in the Bolivian Andes are shrinking at an alarming rate, say scientists.

Data collected from tropical ice fields near the world's highest capital, La Paz, show mass loss in the 1990s at rates 10 times greater than previous decades.

If rising temperatures and low precipitation continue, many smaller glaciers will vanish in a decade, the researchers believe.

The bare rock around the glacier works as an oven, speeding the melting

Dr Robert Gallaire

Further ahead, the consequence could be water and power shortages for millions of Bolivians.

Dangerous work

Alvaro Soruco led the way across the Zongo glacier, cautiously poking the ground before him in search of deadly fissures that plummet deep into the dark heart of this slowly moving mass of ice.

To our right, the glacier climbed near vertically to the towering peak of Huayna Potosi (6,050 metres/19,850 feet).

Lines could be made out on the ice wall  fractures, Alvaro informed me, which one day would be the starting point of an avalanche.

All around us on the snow were small insects, blown up in a cloud from their tropical Amazon home and dropped on to this white carpet to take their last confused steps. And echoing up from far below came the distant gurgle of running water.

Data collection

The data are collected weekly

Crossing this glacier is a weekly event for Alvaro, a 22-year-old student working with the French Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement (IRD).

From a measuring station located 5,200 m above sea level, he records data showing precipitation, wind speed, air temperature and other variables that help the team from the IRD map the changing form of the glacier.

For a decade now, in fair and foul weather, the team has been collecting data on this and two other glaciers in the Cordillera Real mountain range, which curves around La Paz and off north towards Peru.

The results have been alarming.

Losing mass

The Zongo glacier has retreated by around 10 metres and lost about one metre of depth every year.

The nearby Chalcaltaya glacier, known as the world's highest ski-field, has lost over 40% of its thickness and surface area.

The key factor accelerating mass loss on these glaciers is increasingly frequent El Nino events in this part of the world, a climate phenomenon that may or may not be being pumped up by global warming.

"This is a problem for the glaciers because it means lower precipitation and higher temperatures," explained Dr Robert Gallaire, head of the La Paz IRD unit.

Glaciers are shrinking all over the planet. But tropical glaciers, most of which are in the Andes, are losing ground fastest.

Tropical glaciers

Furtwangler ice wall: Worldwide, tropical glaciers are on the retreat

These low-latitude high-altitude glaciers are particularly sensitive to changes in climate because their season of accumulation is summer, when radiation levels are at their peak.

In Europe or elsewhere, glaciers accumulate during the cold season, allowing some recovery.

In the Andes, the run-off goes on all year, leaving smaller glaciers, like Chacaltaya, exposed.

"Chacaltaya no longer has enough inertia," said Dr Gallaire. "The bare rock around the glacier works as an oven, speeding the melting. Even in 2000/1 when we had a strong La Nina year with a lot of snowfall, it continued to lose mass."

Important water source

Run-off from glaciers in the Cordillera Real contributes to reservoirs that supply 1.5 million people in La Paz and the neighboring city El Alto. It also feeds a series of hydroelectric plants that satisfy the two cities' energy needs.

If current warming trends continue, Dr Gallaire fears that within 50 years the loss of glaciers will impact heavily on these water supplies.

Robert Bianchi, general manager at the La Paz water company, Aguas del Illimani, is not so worried.

<

Treading carefully: Glacier research is not without its dangers

He insists that despite the contribution of glacier waters, it is rainfall that meets the majority of water needs. Bianchi also doubts the credibility of long-term water demand and supply estimates.

"To project the problem of water for La Paz and El Alto in 50 years is the work of an artist," he says. "If it is a problem that will affect the next generation it will be a problem for the next concessionaire who takes over in 2027."

Oscar Paz, who heads up Bolivia's climate change office, hopes the world's most powerful nations will not leave their response to a changing climate to the next generation of politicians.

"The most vulnerable countries like Bolivia, who don't have resources to face these problems, are those that will feel the impact of climate change most strongly," he said.

"We need developed nations to act now to control carbon emissions, but also to support us financially as we try to adapt."

Soot in areas with snow and ice may play an important role in climate change.

Also, if snow- and ice-covered areas begin melting, the warming effect increases, as the soot becomes more concentrated on the snow surface.

"This provides a positive feedback (i.e. warming); as glaciers and ice sheets melt, they tend to get even dirtier," said Dr. James Hansen, a researcher at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York.

Click on image to view animation

Item 2  This is a conceptual animation showing how melting ice on land and at sea, can affect the surrounding ocean water, changing both the chemistry and relative sea level.

Credit: NASA

Hansen and Larissa Nazarenko, both of the Goddard Institute and Columbia University's Earth Institute, found soot's effect on snow albedo (solar energy reflected back to space), which has been neglected in previous studies, may be contributing to trends toward early springs in the Northern Hemisphere, thinning Arctic sea ice, melting glaciers
and permafrost.

Soot also is believed to play a role in changes in the atmosphere above the oceans and land.

"Black carbon reduces the amount of energy reflected by snow back into space, thus heating the snow surface more than if there were no black carbon," Hansen said.

The calculated global warming from soot in snow and ice, by itself in an 1880-2000 simulation, accounted for 25 percent of observed global warming. NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites are observing snow cover and reflectivity at multiple wavelengths, which allows quantitative monitoring of changing snow cover and effects of soot on snow.

Item 7

SOOT PARTICLE UNDER A MICROSCOPE

Credit: D.M. Smith, University of Denver

The research is in the paper "Soot Climate Forcing via Snow and Ice Albedos," appearing online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This research was funded by NASA's Earth Science Enterprise.

The Enterprise is dedicated to understanding the Earth as an integrated system and applying Earth system science to improve prediction of climate, weather and natural hazards using the unique vantage point of space.

A U.N. report says the atmosphere could be spared the equivalent of 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions if nations,
instead of HCFCs and HFCs, used ammonia, hydrocarbons, injected carbon dioxide or other ozone-friendly chemicals in foams and refrigerants, alternatives which are more common in Europe.

(right)

Cars drive past a display board showing the prices for different kinds of fuel at a gas station in the eastern German city of Potsdam, April 18, 2006.

Issuing every driver an electronic card to encourage them to reduce energy use is one of the new ideas for curbing reliance on fossil fuels, widely blamed for global warming.

Air pollution from coal-burning power plants may be worsening the region's current drought, according to research by scientists with Nevada's Desert Research Institute.

Pollutants in the air, traceable to coal plants in Western states, are reducing the water content of Rocky Mountain snowfall, possibly by as much as 25 percent, said one of the scientists, Randy Borys, director of the institute's Storm Peak Laboratory in Steamboat Springs, Colo.

"We have documented cases where half of the water was not snowing out of clouds because of air pollution," Borys said last week.

Borys' research, which he has been pursuing for about six years, was published most recently in the May 2003 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Those results documented individual clouds whose snowfall was reduced by as much as 50 percent.

Now Borys, whose lab is on a mountaintop, is testing the overall reduction in water in the total snowpack, which he believes could be as high as 25 percent.

That snowpack is the source of most of Nevada's water supply  85 to 90 percent, said Ken Albright, director of resources for the Southern Nevada Water Authority. Snowfall in the Rockies melts and flows southwest via the Colorado River.

If Borys' research is correct, Albright said, "It's going to have huge implications for the region. This could dramatically change the way the West deals with water supply."

In the last five years, flow into the region's water system has averaged only 50 percent of normal levels, Albright noted.

Albright said he had not previously heard of Borys' findings, but if they were correct, "We'd still be in the midst of a drought, but it wouldn't be nearly as severe."

"If this is true, it poses new questions for water managers throughout the region on the global relationship between industry and human interaction with the environment," Albright added. "This is huge."

Borys pointed out that even if the West were facing an overabundance of water in the Colorado River, air pollutants would still be acting on clouds to prevent snow from falling. The water reduction he documents is not a cause of the drought, he said, since climate phenomena such as droughts are produced by big-picture changes in the overall atmospheric system.

"But if there is a drought, this is going to exacerbate it," he said.

The Desert Research Institute, which is part of the University and Community College System of Nevada, acquired the Colorado laboratory because the weather phenomena observable there have important consequences for Nevada, institute spokesman Ron Kalb said.

"There are some instances where you have to take the scientist to the environment, because you can't take the environment to the scientist," Kalb said.

The lab was rebuilt in 1995 for about $218,000, Kalb said. That money came from the institute's grants and contracts, not the state of Nevada, he noted.

Borys' findings center on the way clouds form and the causes of rain and snow. Like the oyster that seizes on a grain of sand to form a pearl, water droplets in storm clouds form around tiny airborne particles. The particles can be natural, such as sea salt or dust, or manmade.

Borys found that some clouds had so many of the particles that too many tiny drops formed. The same amount of water was split up into many small droplets instead of a few larger ones. The problem is, droplets must reach a certain size to be heavy enough to fall out of the cloud as precipitation.

"On occasion, half of the snow that might fall is not falling" because it's tied up in droplets too tiny to drop, Borys said. The droplets probably evaporate instead, never reaching the mountain snowpack, he said.

The particles involved, Borys found, were mainly sulfates and nitrates, which typically enter the atmosphere due to coal-burning power plants. He used weather patterns to trace the particles to electric plants in Western states.

Despite the proven negative effects of pollution from burning coal, "the interior West is experiencing a resurgence in proposed new coal-fired power plants unlike any we have witnessed in a generation," said Vickie Patton, a Colorado-based representative for the nonprofit Environmental Defense.

According to Energy Argus, a commercial service that tracks energy projects, new coal plants are being proposed in Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona and New Mexico. One-third of the electricity generated by those proposed plants would be in Nevada.

If even a few of those plants are built, Patton said, "the Western airshed would experience a significant rise in the two pollutants that are singled out in the DRI study, not to mention a staggering and unmitigated addition of greenhouse gases."

For several years, environmental scientists have believed in theory that pollutants affected precipitation, but Borys' research provides proof, said Jana Milford, a University of Colorado professor and Environmental Defense senior scientist.

"It's extremely valuable to have this empirical, observational evidence of the effects of pollution on climate," Milford said.

"Mountain snowfall is so critical to this region," she added. "This study needs to be taken seriously" as a cause for concern to policymakers and the public."

More than half of the power generated in the U.S. comes from coal; proponents say new technologies have made coal power cleaner, and it remains cheaper than nuclear, natural gas or alternative energy sources.

The energy industry says that the effects on air quality and human health of the atmospheric particles produced by coal burning have been overstated.

Representatives of the Edison Electric Institute, a trade group, and the industry-sponsored nonprofit Electric Power Research Institute declined to comment on the implications of Borys' research because they were not familiar with it.

To Borys, the meaning is clear. "I'm hoping some of our work demonstrates that pollutants have another reason to concern us," he said.

"Air pollution knows no boundaries," he added, citing oil fires in Kuwait and dust storms in Mongolia that produced effects literally across the globe. "We're all in the same soup, so to speak. Everyone needs to take responsibility to make sure we do our part to maintain our environment."

Two villagers react after discovering that their house was affected by fire in the village of Santa Ana, near Pontecaldelas, northwestern Spain, August 8.

Some 110 fires are burning in Galicia, northern Spain, an official said, as police investigated claims, including from the
environment minister, that arsonists had set the fires.

(right)

Sunflowers grow in a dry field on Villa-Viejas' farm land near Cuenca, August 2.

Persistent drought across much of Spain has seen reservoir water reserves slide this month to 45.3 percent of capacity, according to figures published by the Environment Ministry.

Photos: AFP/Miguel Riopa, AFP/Pedro Armestre

Monday, 14 March, 2005

Himalayan glaciers 'melting fast'

The world's highest mountains hide vast glaciers

Melting glaciers in the Himalayas could lead to water shortages for hundreds of millions of people, the conservation group WWF has warned.

In a report, the WWF says India, China and Nepal could experience floods followed by droughts in coming decades.

The Himalayas contain the largest store of water outside the polar ice caps, and feed seven great Asian rivers.

The group says immediate action against climate change could slow the rate of melting, which is increasing annually.

"The rapid melting of Himalayan glaciers will first increase the volume of water in rivers, causing widespread flooding," said Jennifer Morgan, director of the WWF's Global Climate Change Programme.

"But in a few decades this situation will change and the water level in rivers will decline, meaning massive eco and environmental problems for people in western China, Nepal and northern India."

'Catastrophe'

The glaciers, which regulate the water supply to the Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra, Mekong, Thanlwin, Yangtze and Yellow rivers, are believed to be retreating at a rate of about 10-15m (33-49ft) each year.

The world faces an economic and development catastrophe if the rate of global warming isn't reduced

Jennifer Morgan, WWF

Hundreds of millions of people throughout China and the Indian subcontinent  most of whom live far from the Himalayas  rely on water supplied from these rivers.

Many live on flood plains highly vulnerable to raised water levels.

And vast numbers of farmers rely on regular irrigation to grow their crops successfully.

The WWF said the potential for disaster in the region should serve to focus the minds of ministers of 20 leading industrialised nations gathering in London for two meetings on climate change.

"Ministers should realise now that the world faces an economic and development catastrophe if the rate of global warming isn't reduced," Ms Morgan said.

Temperatures rising

Farmers in rural China are dependent on regular irrigation

She added that a study commissioned for the WWF indicated that the temperature of the earth could rise by two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in a little over 20 years.

Nepal's annual average temperature has risen by 0.06 degrees Celsius, and three snow-fed rivers have shown signs of reduced flows.

Water level in China's Qinghai Plateau wetlands have affected lakes, rivers and swamps, while India's Gangotri glacier is receding by 23 metres each year.

Nicole Hosp

Rettenbachferner glacier

Philipp Schoerghofer

(left)

Austria's Nicole Hosp clears a gate during her second run of the women's giant slalom world cup race at the Rettenbachferner glacier in Soelden, October 27, 2007.

(right)

Austria's Philipp Schoerghofer clears a gate during his first run of the men's giant slalom world cup race at the Rettenbachferner glacier in Soelden, October 28, 2007.

Photos: REUTERS/Dominic Ebenbichler

BBC  Wednesday, 17 November, 2004

Climate change 'ruining' Everest

Campaigners demand urgent assessment of the risks to Everest

Environmentalists are calling for Mount Everest should be put on a UN danger list because of global warming.

Melting glaciers have swollen lakes and increased the risk of catastrophic flooding in the Himalayas, they say.

The move to save the world's highest peak is part of a new campaign to force reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.

The campaigners are arguing that countries are legally bound to protect World Heritage Sites from damage.

The group, including famous mountaineers and members of the UK-based group Friends of the Earth, will ask Unesco, the UN educational, scientific and cultural agency to put Nepal's Sagarmatha National Park on its danger list.

It will also submit petitions for the Belize barrier reef and the Huascaran National Park in Peru to be included in the list.

"Mount Everest is a powerful symbol of the natural world not just in Nepal," the director of Friends of the Earth Nepal, Prakash Sharma, was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.

"If this mountain is threatened by climate change, then we know the situation is deadly serious," the director added.

The campaigners admit that their initiative is a largely symbolic act, the BBC's environment correspondent Richard Black says.

But they argue that if politics is failing to curb global warming, then other avenues  including the law  must be used, our correspondent says.

If Unesco agrees with the submissions, it can ask member states to take corrective action.

However, even if Unesco does demand emission cuts, there is nothing in its rules which would force governments to obey, our correspondent adds.

San Diego

California, US

Smog

Los Angeles

(left)

A customer operates a gas pump at a gas station in San Diego, California in this April 19, 2006 file photo.

Issuing every driver an electronic card to encourage them to reduce energy use is one of the most radical ideas for curbing reliance on fossil fuels, one of the chief causes of global warming.

(right)

Smog hangs over downtown Los Angeles in this November 19, 2005 photo.

California is forging ahead with the most aggressive U.S. program to reduce global warming  a plan that pits Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger against fellow Republican George W. Bush.

Photos: REUTERS/Fred Greaves, REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

BBC  Monday, 19 February, 2001

Kilimanjaro's white peak to disappear

Kilimanjaro's white peak to disappear

The beautiful ice fields on the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in East Africa could completely melt away in the next 20 years if the Earth continues to warm at the rate many scientists now claim.

The calculation comes from Professor Lonnie Thompson, of Ohio State University, who has made an aerial survey of the famous Tanzanian peak.

He said comparisons with previous mapping showed 33% of Mt Kilimanjaro's ice had disappeared in the last two decades  82% had gone since 1912.

Studies on other tropical peaks had revealed a similar picture, he told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

He warned this melting could have serious repercussions for drinking water supply, crop irrigation, hydroelectric production and tourism.

Accelerating retreat

"Kilimanjaro is the number one foreign-currency earner for the Tanzanian Government. Twenty thousand tourists go there every year because one of the attractions is to see ice at three degrees south of the equator. But I think there is a real possibility that that ice will be gone by 2015."

Professor Thompson has spent about 20 years studying the tropical ice fields on the mountains of South America, Africa, China and Tibet.

He told the AAAS meeting that the Quelccaya ice cap in the Peruvian Andes had shrunk by 20% since 1963. And its largest outlet glacier, known as Qori Kalis, was accelerating in its retreat  155 metres per year in the last survey compared with just 48 metres per year in the previous study period in 1995-98.

"The glaciers are like natural dams," he said. "They store the snow in the wet season and they melt in the dry season and bring water flow to the rivers."

Climate 'archive'

He said their loss was a blow also to science which used the compacted ice built up in the glaciers over decades and centuries to investigate past climate.

"The loss of these frozen 'archives' threatens water resources for hydroelectric power production, irrigation for crops and municipal water supplies. Moreover, the melting of these smaller ice caps and glaciers leads to sea level rise."

Professor Thomspon's work is part of a large effort, under the auspices of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), to understand how the global environment is changing. According to the IGBP's executive director, Dr Will Steffan, Thompson's work adds to the growing body of evidence of a rapidly changing Earth.

"Retreating glaciers is one of many symptoms that the Earth is undergoing dramatic changes within our lifetime. Climate change is just one piece in a much bigger puzzle."

Walks past glacier at summit

Mount Kilimanjaro

Coal for heating home

Beijing, China

(left)

A climber walks past a glacier at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, one of the world's largest volcanoes and the highest free-standing mountain, in Tanzania in this January 4, 2006.

The mountain has become an icon for environmental campaigners, with scientists predicting that the its glaciers will vanish within the next 20 years
because of global warming.

(right)

A Chinese resident carries coal in to his house which will be used for heating homes and cooking in Beijing, China Wednesday Feb. 7, 2007.

Beijing is facing increasing international pressure to deal with its emissions problem and says it wants to reduce its dependence on coal.

Photos: REUTERS/Darrin Zammit Lupi, AP/Elizabeth Dalziel

BBC  Friday, 18 October, 2002

Kilimanjaro's ice 'archive'

Northern ice field: Cores are drilled down through the ice

The ice fields of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania have given up remarkable new information about the African climate stretching back more than 11,000 years.

Cores drilled into the glaciers high up on the peak support earlier evidence that there were three catastrophic droughts on the continent in the intervening period.

The research, published in the journal Science, also reinforces predictions made last year that rising temperatures  if they persist  could clear the mountain's ice completely within two decades.

This could cause difficulties for local people whose economies depend in part on the melt waters coming from the mountain and who also benefit from the influx of tourists drawn to the beauty of the white-capped tropical peak.

Some time between 2015 and 2020 [the] ice will be gone  along with the archive of climate history recorded in those glaciers

Prof Lonnie Thompson

Wet and dry

Professor Lonnie Thompson, from Ohio State University, US, collected six cores from the mountain.

The ice columns were investigated for deposits trapped in the yearly snowfalls that built up the glaciers.

By checking these markers against other historical records, Thompson and colleagues were able to construct a climate "history book".

Its ice is an important climate archive for Africa

Included in the record are radioactive markers related to the fall-out of nuclear bomb tests, which accurately date some of the ice sample; and specific types of oxygen and hydrogen atoms that can be used to infer past temperatures. Dust layers give an idea of yearly precipitation.

The cores show much of the past 11,000 years to have been generally wetter and warmer than present, but they also show evidence for three major droughts  8,300, 5,200 and 4,000 years ago  the last of which went on for 300 years.

Ice retreat

By using global positioning from satellites, aerial maps and an array of stakes placed on the ice fields, the researchers have been able to confirm that Kilimanjaro's white cap is retreating in extent and volume.

In February 2001, Professor Thompson said the rate of retreat could see the mountain completely ice free within 20 years. He said the latest work had not changed that assessment.

He told the BBC: "We have a series of maps  the first made in 1912.

"Then there was about 12.1 square kilometres of ice on the mountain.

One of the last remnants of Kilimanjaro's eastern ice field: A six-metre spire

"Since then, there have been five maps, the latest by us produced from aerial photographs taken on 16 February, 2000. That showed only 2.2 sq km of ice remained on the mountain  so we've lost about 80% of the ice since 1912.

"If you look at the area on the maps in between you have a series of dots that line up.

"If you project those into the future, some time between 2015 and 2020 that ice will be gone  along with the archive of climate history recorded in those glaciers."

Global changes

But colleague Dr Douglas Hardy, from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, also US, cautioned against jumping to conclusions about global warming.

Thompson says the Furtwangler ice wall on Kilimanjaro has undergone a massive retreat in recent years
"Without diagnostic evidence, a definitive link to global warming is on thin ice," he said.

"Evidence is mounting that human influences on climate are causing glaciers to retreat dramatically around the world, and especially at high elevations in the tropics.

"But Kilimanjaro's glaciers have little in common with mid-latitude Alpine glaciers, and we must accept that simple explanations are not always possible.

Thompson says the Furtwangler ice wall on Kilimanjaro has undergone a massive retreat in recent years

"Kilimanjaro is a mountain that defies expectations and shatters assumptions."

Cotopaxi mountain

Active volcano

Ecuador

The Cotopaxi mountain is seen 5897 meters above sea level November 3, 2007.

My first glimpse of Kilimanjaro is awesome. As dawn breaks in the town of Moshi in the north of Tanzania, the snow-capped peak of the mountain emerges from the mist.

Six kilometres (19,500ft) above sea level, the snow and ice hurt the eyes in the African sun.

Kilimanjaro, literally the "mountain of snow", is a place where God was said to live, a provider of water for the local Chagga people and, today, the single largest source of tourist dollars in a struggling economy.

But the ice is melting and once it is gone, there is a real concern that the 20,000 tourists who come to climb the mountain each year will be gone too. After all a mountain without snow in Africa is just another mountain.

The precise reasons why the ice fields are shrinking are complex, but deforestation and global warming are commonly blamed.

Frozen archive

Phil Ndesamburo, the MP for the area, remembers the mountain of his childhood covered in snow. Now, in his seventies, Phil shared his concerns for the future.

"Without this mountain, we cannot live. It provides water for the coffee and banana plantations at the base of the mountain, and without water there is no life," he said.

The crater glacier is a shadow of its former glory

We set off just after dawn. At the gate to the Kilimanjaro National Park, the porters, guides and would-be climbers are massing for the ascent. With the hazards of altitude sickness, more than half of them will not reach the summit.

Each porter carries a massive 20kg (45lbs). My pack weighs in at four. For four days, we climb steadily upwards, camping each night until we reach the ice.

Professor Lonnie Thompson, a glaciologist at Ohio State University, US, has been studying the ice cores his team took from the mountain in 2000.

They were drilled in the Northern and Southern Ice Fields and in the thin Furtwängler Glacier within the crater.

The cores are a frozen archive with 12,000 years of climatic history locked in the ice.

His research shows that over 80% of the ice cover has been lost since 1912, and given the current rate of decline, he predicts that the ice fields will be gone completely in the next 15 years.

Small withdrawals

At one o'clock in the morning, my guide wakes me for the final push to the top. Ahead of us we have a 900m (3,000-ft) climb in the dark to reach the crater near the summit  an almost vertical cliff, and the oxygen level is down to a quarter of the level on the plain.

It is hard work and my head throbs. In the eerie light from my head torch, we climb parallel to one of the arms of the glacier. Five hours later we reach the crater.

It is here in the black volcanic dust that the scientists pitch their tents when they come to take measurements from the Automated Weather Station on the Northern Ice Field.

Julianna Adosi, a scientist at the Tanzanian Meteorological Agency, recently returned from her first trip up the mountain. She likens the glacier to a bank account where small withdrawals are being made every day until there will be nothing left.

Reduced glacier

A sense of achievement at reaching the summit is tinged with sadness

As I near the summit, altitude and lack of oxygen begin to take their toll. My head feels about to burst and mental awareness is at an all-time low. Two hundred feet to go and I am convinced I can't make it.

The air here is too thin for helicopter rescues so the only way out is on foot or the "Kilimanjaro express", a one-wheeled stretcher which is said to be the scariest ride in the world.

I start pulling off my hat, balaclava and gloves  the early signs of hypothermia. Emanuel and a porter pull me through the snow until I finally reach Uhuru summit.

Below me the reduction in the ice is clear to see. The glacier which once filled the crater stands out sharply against the black dust of the mountain, now a fraction of its former glory.

For me there is a great feeling of personal achievement, but it is a feeling tinged with sadness as I know that my generation will be the last to see the fabled snows of Kilimanjaro.

Kangaru mountain's summit

(left)

Picture taken in 2004 shows the Kangaru mountain's summit where seven French climbers and 11 Nepalese mountain guides were killed in a massive avalanche 20 October, 2005, in northwestern Nepal.

(right)

Crashing out : Daron Rahlves of US crashes in the first lap of men's giant slalom during the opening FIS World cup in Alpine skiing in Soelden.

Photos: AFP/EXPES.COM-HO, AFP/Joe Klamar

The melting mountains

Joe Simpson, climber and author of 'Touching The Void', reveals how climate change is destroying the world's most spectacular landscapes

Published: 05 November 2005

On 23 July 1983 Ian Whittaker and I were inching our way up the Bonatti Pillar, a legendary Alpine climb up 2,000ft of golden granite on the south-west face of Les Drus, high above Chamonix in France.

Walter Bonatti had made the first ascent of this route alone over five days in 1955.

It is a legendary mountaineering story, perhaps one of the greatest exploits in the history of Alpinism, to rank alongside the first ascents of the north faces of the Eiger, the Matterhorn and the Grandes Jorasses.

We all need heroes. Walter Bonatti was the hero of heroes; a man way ahead of his time whose mountaineering prowess was awe-inspiring.

I repeated the routes he put up with a sense of reverence.

I have followed in the footsteps of so many of my heroes and there were times on their routes when I half expected to see them pass me by dressed in the clothes and the equipment of their time, climbing steadily with grim, hard, unsmiling expressions.

I knew that they would not notice me.

Only Bonatti has survived. The rest are all gone, leaving the faint glow of their brilliance on the routes they pioneered.

Yet the icy world in which Bonatti played his high-risk games is changing with frightening rapidity.

The mountains are melting, and it is not only mountaineers who will suffer the effects.

The long-term outlook for the Alpine nations  and those in which the other great ranges lie  is bleak.

The Dru is an extraordinary pinnacle of rock.

It sports an icy north face (one of the six classic Alpine north faces), a 3,000ft west face of smooth vertical walls and overhangs, and the spectacular south-west Bonatti Pillar.

Few mountains have such a variety of magnificent lines on them or look so beautiful.

The Dru crusted with a winter lace-work of ice and gilded in the golden pink of Alpine glow is one of the most striking sights in the Alps.

The Bonatti Pillar itself rises in a series of steep, leaning columns seamed with fissures and bristling with overhangs.

It rears up 2,000ft towards the massive capping overhangs just below the summit.

We hung there helplessly for 12 hours until at last a helicopter came into view and we were winched to safety.

Two weeks later, while working as a plongeur in the Montenvers Hotel, I saw an even bigger rock fall on Les Drus  a fall that altered the shape of the summit and spewed helicopter-sized blocks down the north face, creating a 1,000ft high dust cloud.

So what? After being swept 2,000 feet down the north-east face of Les Courtes in 1981 and then having my bed disappear on the Dru in 1983 I am keenly aware that mountains have always been falling down, usually, it would seem, with me attached to them.

It happens.

The Cairngorms were once Himalayan in scale. Frost, wind and water have ground them down to their present lowly heights.

However, 20 years later it would seem that perhaps Les Drus are falling down rather faster than they should.

In 1997 more than 1,500 cubic metres of rock fell into the valley below, destroying classic alpine routes such as the Thomas Gross and the Destivelle routes as well as some pitches of the Bonatti Pillar.

This was nothing compared with the collapse on 29 June this summer, when the west face of Petit Dru suffered yet another enormous rock fall.

A fortnight earlier, two climbers on the Quartz Ledge escape route from the top of the north face had been alarmed to discover that a gaping crack had split open along the length of the ledge.

It was the first sign that the Bonatti Pillar in its entirety was soon to disappear, alongside the famous Harlin Route on the west face and large chunks of the American Direct.

The collapse occurred above the previous 1997 fall. Fifty years of iconic climbs had disappeared without trace.

More surprisingly still, no one was killed. Climbers have been advised to steer clear.

Such warnings are becoming ominously familiar in the Alps nowadays.

Two years ago Victor Saunders, one of Britain's leading climbers, and his companion, Craig Higgins, had reached a point halfway up the Matterhorn's Hornli ridge when their climb turned into a nightmare.

"An enormous avalanche hurtled down the mountain's east face," said Saunders.

"I have never seen so much rock falling at one time."

An almost continuous rain of boulders ricocheted past them as they cowered under an overhang.

Within an hour an even bigger rock avalanche was thundering down the north face, obliterating the classic 1931 Schmidt route that I had climbed in 1980.

This was swiftly followed by the thunder and dust cloud of yet another vast rock fall.

In one of mountaineering's biggest mass rescues, more than 70 climbers had to be hoisted from the slopes of the Matterhorn.

A ban on climbing the mountain was instigated for the first time in history as rock falls battered its broken flanks.

It seemed to the survivors that the very Alps had started falling apart.

In the summer of 2003 one of the world's most iconic climbs, the 1938 route on the Eiger's north face, became yet another victim of climate change.

Climbers were shocked to find that there was barely any ice left on the route.

The huge second ice field, the third ice field and the White Spider had melted away and now consisted of rubble-strewn rock slopes dusted by blackened snow and pocked by forlorn patches of ancient grey ice.

The heat wave of last year, reported to have been the hottest Alpine summer in 200 years, seemed to have finished off this venerable climb.

It may be that it is only ever climbable during the winter months, when some semblance of névé ice has reformed.

A local guide, Hans Ueli, has reported enormous rock falls.

One such fall woke him at five in the morning and, upon looking out of his window, he saw that the lower half of the 6,000ft high face was obscured by an enormous cloud of dust.

Climbs the length and breadth of the Alps have suffered similar collapses.

On Fiescherwand there was no snow ice at all on the entire four-mile wide north face.

The north face of Les Droites near Chamonix, recently only climbable in the winter, now even in the coldest months presents an insurmountable 600m barrier of smooth, bare rock slabs where once there had been pristine ice fields.

Ironically, only a few days before the Bonatti Pillar disintegrated, a man regarded by some as a half-witted religious bigot announced at the G8 summit in Gleneagles that as far as he was concerned America did not regard global warming as important nor pressing.

Leastways that is how I interpreted President George Bush's words.

Scientists now believe global warming is melting the Alps.

The ice that for thousands of years had filled the deep cracks at the summit of the Dru has started to melt.

The glue holding this rock tower together is leaking away.

More seriously, the crust of permafrost that binds the whole mountain range together is beginning to melt.

The foundations of buildings, roads, mines, tunnels, cable-car stations and their supporting pylons are entirely dependent on the frozen solidity of this permafrost.

As it steadily melts, the whole infrastructure of Alpine tourism is at risk, as well as a great many lives.

All the most famous ski resorts in Europe are situated in valleys overlooked by mountains held together by permafrost.

The high altitude permafrost zones lie on steep slopes above these settlements, roads, railways and valleys.

Massive slope failures and landslides leading to blocked rivers, dammed lakes and catastrophic flooding will be especially pronounced in the Alps, which has such steep topography and high population levels.

Already climatologists have predicted the complete failure of the Scottish ski industry due to lack of snow within 20 years and the Alpine ski industry within 50 years.

Many Alpine ski resorts would already be out of business but for the snow machines.

Because the best Alpine ski fields and lift systems are above the crucial permafrost altitude of 8,202 feet, it could spell the end of the ski industry as we know it, let alone the more esoteric world of mountaineering.

When you consider that one sixth of Austria's gross domestic product comes from Alpine tourism, the effects of permafrost meltdown could be far more wide-ranging than just screwing up our winter sports holidays.

Climatologists, geologists and civil engineers from all over the world are making disturbingly similar reports.

Glaciers in Antarctica are thinning twice as fast as they were a decade ago and this may destabilise the west Antarctic ice sheet, which, if melted, contains enough ice to raise sea levels by as much as five metres.

A gigantic slab, the Larsen B ice shelf, has already fallen off its eastern side.

Ablation rates of glaciers are speeding up all over the world.

Retreating glaciers in the Peruvian Andes are adding huge amounts of melt water to already overburdened mountain lakes, greatly increasing the risk of dam collapses and alluvion avalanches.

There are passes in the Cordillera Real in Bolivia that just 20 years ago were glaciated, yet now are rocky moraine fields.

Only two weeks ago it was announced that Kilimanjaro in Tanzania would lose its year-round mantle of snow within 10 years. One-third of Kilimanjaro's ice field has disappeared in the past 12 years.

In Iceland ice cores have shown that temperatures are at their highest since the arrival of the Vikings.

The past two years have been the hottest since records began in 1822. At this rate of melting, all the ice will be gone in 200 years.

In the Arctic, a region of sea ice the size of France and Germany has melted away in the past 30 years and there are fears that the inflow of fresh water could possibly lead to the shutdown of the Gulf Stream, which bathes Europe in warm water.

This would plunge Britain into winters that would be the equivalent of those in northern Canada.

It wouldn't save the ski industry, not unless you like skiing in conditions of 40C below.

Boreholes sunk to monitor ice temperatures in Switzerland, Austria, the Dolomites, the German Alps, the Sierra Nevada and the Abisko mountains in Swedenn have all recorded temperature increases of between 0.5 and 1C during the past 15 years.

The ground temperature in the Alps has risen considerably over the past decade.

As air temperatures have increased, the effects below ground are being magnified fivefold.

A test borehole dug in Murtel in southern Switzerland has revealed that sub-surface soils have warmed by more than 1C since 1990.

Increasing evaporation caused by warmer summers is also triggering thicker falls of winter snow, which insulate the soil and keep it warm.

All in all it is not looking good.

Spotting the early signs of the imminent collapse of buildings and valleys may be possible.

Mountains collapsing around your ears are a dead giveaway.

Noticing that cable stations and other buildings have developed cracks should also be easy.

But by then the horse has well and truly bolted.

The abrupt disintegration of the Matterhorn, the Dru and the desertification of the north face of the Eiger may mean that some classic routes can no longer be climbed, but they are also the harbinger of far more gloomy events.

Is this global warming? I don't know. It might just be a normal climatic cycle.

Somehow, unlike President Bush, I don't think so. It may not be the day after tomorrow but it certainly looks as if it is all because of the day before yesterday.

Transcript of interview with Niels Harrit on Danish TV2 News 6th April 2009.

Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe

Danish TV2International researchers have found traces of explosives among the World Trade Center rubble.

A new scientific article concludes that impacts from the two hijacked aircraft did not cause the collapses in 2001.

We turn our attention to 9/11  the major attack in New York.

Apparently the two airplane-impacts did not cause the towers to collapse, according to a newly published scientific article.

Researchers found nano-thermite explosive in the rubble, that cannot have come from the planes.

They believe several tonnes of explosives were placed in the buildings in advance.

Niels Harrit, you and eight other researchers conclude in this article, that it was nano-thermite that caused these buildings to collapse. What is nano-thermite?

Niels HarritWe found nano-thermite in the rubble.

We are not saying only nano-thermite was used.

Thermite itself dates back to 1893.

It is a mixture of aluminum and rust-powder, which react to create intense heat.

The reaction produces iron, heated to 2500 °C.

This can be used to do welding. It can also be used to melt other iron.

Nanotechnology makes things smaller. So in nano-thermite, this powder from 1893 is reduced to tiny particles, perfectly mixed.

When these react, the intense heat develops much more quickly.

Nano-thermite can be mixed with additives to give off intense heat, or serve as a very effective explosive.

It contains more energy than dynamite, and can be used as rocket fuel.

Danish TV2
I Googled nano-thermite, and not much has been written about it. Is it a widely known scientific substance? Or is it so new that other scientists are hardly aware of it?

Niels HarritIt is a collective name for substances with high levels of energy.

If civilian researchers (like myself) are not familiar with it, it is probably because they do not do much work with explosives.

As for military scientists, you would have to ask them.

I do not know how familiar they are with nanotechnology.

Danish TV2So you found this substance in the WTC, why do you think it caused the collapses?

Niels Harrit
Well, it's an explosive. Why else would it be there?

Danish TV2You believe the intense heat melted the building?s steel support structure, and caused the building to collapse like a house of cards?

Niels HarritI cannot say precisely, as this substance can serve both purposes.

It can explode and break things apart, and it can melt things.

Both effects were probably used, as I see it.

Molten metal pours out of the South Tower several minutes before the collapse.

This indicates the whole structure was being weakened in advance.

Then the regular explosives come into play.

The actual collapse sequence had to be perfectly timed, all the way down.

Danish TV2What quantities are we talking about?

Niels HarritA lot. There were only two planes, but three skyscrapers collapsed.

We know roughly how much dust was created.

The pictures show huge quantities, everything but the steel was pulverised.

And we know roughly how much unreacted thermite we have found.

This is the “loaded gun”, material that did not ignite for some reason.

We are talking about tonnes. Over 10 tonnes, possibly 100 tonnes.

Danish TV2
Ten tonnes, possibly 100 tonnes, in three buildings? And these substances are not normally found in such buildings?

Niels HarritNo. These materials are extremely advanced.

Danish TV2How do you place such material in a skyscraper, on all the floors?

Niels HarritHow you would get it in?

Danish TV2Yes.

Niels HarritIf I had to transport it in those quantities I would use pallets. Get a truck and move it in on pallets.

Danish TV2Why hasn't this been discovered earlier?

Niels HarritBy whom?

Danish TV2The caretakers, for example. If you are moving 10 to 100 tonnes of nano-thermite around, and placing it on all the floors. I am just surprised no-one noticed.

Niels HarritAs a journalist, you should address that question to the company responsible for security at the WTC.

Danish TV2So you are in no doubt the material was present?

Niels HarritYou cannot fudge this kind of science.

We have found it. Unreacted thermite.

Danish TV2What responses has your article received around the world?

Niels HarritIt is completely new knowledge for me.

It was only published last Friday. So it is too early to say.

But the article may not be as groundbreaking as you think.

Hundreds of thousands of people around the world, have long known that the three buildings were demolished.

This has been crystal clear.

Our research is just the last nail in the coffin.

This is not the 'smoking gun', it is the 'loaded gun'.

Each day, thousands of people realise that the WTC was demolished.

That is something unstoppable.

Danish TV2Why has no-one discovered earlier that there was nano-thermite in the buildings? Almost ten years have passed.

Niels HarritYou mean in the dust?

Danish TV2Yes.

Niels HarritIt was by chance that someone looked at the dust with a microscope.

They are tiny red chips.

The biggest are 1 mm in size, and can be seen with the naked eye.

But you need a microscope to see the vast majority.

It was by chance that someone discovered them two years ago.

Danish TV2It has taken 18 months to prepare the scientific article you refer to.

Niels HarritIt is a very comprehensive article based on thorough research.

Danish TV2
You have been working on this for several years, because it didn't make sense to you.

Niels Harrit
Yes, over two years actually.

It all started when I saw the collapse of Building 7, the third skyscraper.

It collapsed seven hours after the twin towers.

And there were only two airplanes.

When you see a 47-storey building, 186m tall, collapse in 6.5 seconds, and you are a scientist, you think “what?”.

I had to watch it again… and again.

I hit the button 10 times, and my jaw dropped lower and lower.

Firstly, I had never heard of that building before.

And there was no visible reason why it should collapse in that way, straight down, in 6.5 seconds.

I have had no rest since that day.

Danish TV2
Ever since 9/11 there has been speculation, and conspiracy theories. What do you say to viewers who hear about your research and say, “we?ve heard it all before, there are lots of conspiracy theories”. What would you say to convince them that this is different?

Niels HarritI think there is only one conspiracy theory worth mentioning, the one involving 19 hijackers.

I think viewers should ask themselves what evidence they have seen to support the official conspiracy theory.

If anyone has seen evidence, I would like to hear about it

No-one has been formally charged. No-one is 'wanted'.

Our work should lead to demands for a proper criminal investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attack.

Because it never happened. We are still waiting for it.

We hope our results will be used as technical evidence when that day comes.

Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga, who revealed the existence of Operation Gladio, has told Italy’s oldest and most widely read newspaper that the 9-11 terrorist attacks were run by the CIA and Mossad, and that this was common knowledge among global intelligence agencies.

In what translates awkwardly into English, Cossiga told the newspaper Corriere della Sera:

“All the [intelligence services] of America and Europe… know well that the disastrous attack has been planned and realized from the Mossad, with the aid of the Zionist world in order to put under accusation the Arabic countries and in order to induce the western powers to take part … in Iraq [and] Afghanistan.”

Cossiga was elected president of the Italian Senate in July 1983 before winning a landslide election to become president of the country in 1985, and he remained until 1992.

Cossiga’s tendency to be outspoken upset the Italian political establishment, and he was forced to resign after revealing the existence of, and his part in setting up, Operation Gladio.

This was a rogue intelligence network under NATO auspices that carried out bombings across Europe in the 1960s, 1970s and ’80s.

Gladio’s specialty was to carry out what they termed 'false flag' operations  terror attacks that were blamed on their domestic and geopolitical opposition.

By all accounts, the unprecedented events of September 11th, 2001 changed the way our country functions, and in turn, the world.

It is therefore critical that conscientious Americans, as well as people around the globe, understand these events in detail.

Unfortunately the official reports, including The 9/11 Commission Report and the NIST WTC Report, written by those working under the direction of the Bush Administration, have been proven to be elaborate cover-ups.

Film: 9/11 Revisited

September 11th Revisited is perhaps the most riveting film ever made about the destruction of the World Trade Center.

This is a powerful documentary which features eyewitness accounts and archived news footage that was shot on September 11, 2001 but never replayed on television.